


Duty

by Lesetoilesfous



Series: Duty [1]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drama, Historical Fantasy, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Other, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 14:19:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4395113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesetoilesfous/pseuds/Lesetoilesfous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Killua snorts. “These days? Please. Your people might as well come lie with mine. You’ve made your beds.” Gon stares, perplexed. Killua spins the dagger in his right hand around his index finger. “Your Daimyō will come and go before summer's reached its peak, and your duty will be done, too. We left honour with the emperors. All anyone does these days is survive.” Gon’s frown deepens and his jaw tenses. </p><p>“That’s not true.” '</p><p>Set in the Sengoku period in Japan, the Era of Warring States. Killua is an assassin trained in the Iga-ryu school. Gon is a peasant turned samurai working for the Daimyo Kurapika, who has recently risen to power. Kurapika is Killua's target, but he has to get through Gon first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MetaVirus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetaVirus/gifts).



Killua shot first.

 

It wasn’t much of a job. Some tribal farmer whose village at the base of the Suzuka mountains had been wiped out by a rising Daimyō from Owari province. A talented thief come general calling himself Chrollo who, apparently, had given the Iga-ryūa better price than Poor but Charismatic Kurapika of the Kurta. That and the fact that the Suzuka mountains were altogether too close to their little republic of killers had him on their hit list before the day was out. Not that it made much of a difference at this point. Killua was raised in an age of strife and blood. Daimyō rose and fell like houseflies from obscurity to infamy and back again wherever you went. Farmers chased fortune down the edges of their swords, and the imperial line had been all but obliterated into retreat. Life panted after death down the ruined streets of new cities falling like a dog with its tail. And in its shadow, the great assassin clans of Iga and Koga had risen for convenience. Grand battles were well and good, but took time few could afford any more. With one man in every dozen claiming superiority above his fellows, someone was needed to thin the herd.

 

That was where men like Killua came in.

 

The dart he’d kissed through the damp night air didn’t whistle, it was designed not to make a sound and loaded with enough poison to kill a bull, let alone an underfed peasant in search of distant glory. He didn’t bother to see the man’s face. His nightmares were getting crowded these days and it’d be over quickly, anyway. He waited, wondering whether he could hear the impact of the thing into his neck before the heavier thud of his body onto the wooden floor.

 

He heard nothing at all.

 

Killua frowned into the shadows. Rainwater seeped through the dark cloth covering his nape and slowly down the dip of his spine. The rain was light, and warm, more of a mist just thick enough to veil the stars than an assault upon the castle roof. He expected few of those sleeping would even know of its falling by sunrise. By then it’d have twinned with the dew, and left little more than a whisper on an echo. Like him.

 

It was a hand he saw first: thick tanned fingers, a labourer’s calloused palm, twisting his little steel dart as if catching it was not something that had been remarkable. The hand was followed by a man: broad of shoulder with tied thick black hair. A swathe of freckles born of long days in the sun defied the thick cut of the silk he wore beneath his armour: heavy plates of lacquered iron which covered his chest, belly and shoulders. At his waist hung his katana, still sealed with silk thread. Just over his right shoulder, Killua could make out the gleam of the helmet he hadn’t bothered to put on.

 

None of this was particularly concerning. Killua would be faster than this man in that armour, was undoubtedly possessing of greater dexterity as an acolyte of the Iga-ryū school, and had greater access to wider range of weapons. He could drop a smoke bomb, for example, far more quickly than his opponent could hope to unseal his sword, let alone draw it. Cold sweat ran clammy over his palms, even as they flickered into motion. Two shuriken danced around his index and middle fingers. Between them a moat of cedar and red pine lay dull pink in the moonlight of the open screen door. Killua did not cast a shadow: he knew where not to. The stranger did not make a sound.

 

There were 6 people in the world known throughout the Iga clan that could cross a nightingale floor. The Zoldycks, the family of half Mongolian merchants that had risen to prosperity and then infamy from which Killua came, knew another three. This man was not one of them.

 

It had been what made this assignment interesting. The floor was designed to creak in the time of birdsong, making it, in principle, impossible for any unwanted intruder, or even a guest, to cross it to the bedrooms without making it sing. The guards Daimyō Kurapika had posted at the castle’s outer walls and inside its courtyard were standard fare in an era already known as that of warring states. As had been the dogs Killua had not had the heart to kill. But this particular measure showed greater intelligence than was expected from a glorified cowherd. This was a real test. A test that, of course, he knew he could pass. Silva Zoldyck had had a nightingale floor installed in his own castle that had not sung for more than decade. It required dexterity, agility, and excellent hearing. But it was possible to cross it, quietly.

 

To do so in a full suit of armour, however, was another matter entirely. Killua acted on reflex. The stranger swayed like a sapling, seemingly slow. The serrated discs hit the interior wall with two dull thumps. Killua thanked gods he didn’t believe in that they hit the cedar and not the screens. The rip would have been altogether louder. The stranger throws the poison dart. He doesn’t aim, or throw with intent; instead he tosses it underhand, lightly, as if it’s a toy or a ball being passed between children. Killua catches it without blinking, slipping it into a pocket sewn into his thighs almost after his right hand has drawn his dagger. This time the stranger’s hand does fall to his katana. His thumb and forefinger brush aside the silk string seal as his left foot pushes forward. Again, the floor is silent. Killua’s gaze flickers to the panels and back to the guard. Neither of them move for a moment. Killua is first to break it, kicking a little gravel over the screen rails. It’s not much; the stones are smaller than silver pieces. But, faintly, the floor warbles a note of warning.

 

A frown flits across his face like birds across the moon. His knuckles grow whiter around the handle of his dagger. The stranger is less guarded; a frown reshapes his face like damp cloth, wrinkling the sun-brown skin of his features into deep crevasses dark in the clouded twilight. He draws his sword. It hisses against its sheath, whispering of rushes on a hot summer day, moving through a gleaming arc like a kingfisher’s leap with ease across the space between them. Killua doesn’t lean back, he knew its reach already. His eyes, however, do widen for a moment. Roots on the front edge of the blade, a dragon on the back, and an engraving of one of the five wisdom kings, Fudo Myo-o. A Masamune sword.

 

In the mean time the guard has moved forwards. His hands shift on the hilt of his blade, and his right heel twists. Killua takes a step back into the damp dust of the courtyard on reflex, dagger held horizontally before him. There’s a foot between he and the screen of the castle’s inner residence that hadn’t been there before. His expression, largely hidden by the black cloth wrapped around his cheeks and jaw, settles into impassivity.

 

The guard moves, and Killua does too, and the clash of their blades rings dully through the night, dampened by the rain, as the moon breaks through a distant cloud and casts its light into the doorway. The katana sinks into his dagger as if it’s flesh, not steel, but it stops within millimeters. An ordinary weapon would have broken in two. As it is, the knife shivers with the impact. Killua’s back is arched and his arms are raised and he finds himself within inches of his opponent. Which is, in principle, exactly where he wants to be. Expect that in that first flurry of movement his lungs fill with a scent that he knows, and the moon breaks through the clouds and a curl of his hair escapes the black cloth around his head and the guard’s eyes widen at about the same time as he stops breathing.

 

Killua is frozen. His eyes flicker to the open door over his opponent’s shoulder. The samurai doesn’t follow his gaze; he’s too busy staring at the thin window in Killua’s clothes left open onto his face so he can see. He lets out a shuddering breath that shakes through both their blades and with it breathes, “Killua.”

 

Killua’s fingers twitch around the dagger in his hand but it’s still caught on the katana. With a twist of his wrist it’s free and he’s stepping right, not back, but still away. Lowering his knife. The samurai sheaths his sword. He isn’t smiling outright, but it’s there in the pull of his cheeks and the creasing of his eyes.

 

“Gon.” Killua’s voice is low and rough with misuse. His assignments are not normally conversational affairs. He doesn’t intend to break the habit. “Get out of the way.”

 

His tone is that which one might use to discipline a dog. He doesn’t meet Gon’s eyes. His hand twists on the dagger, just so, and rain breaks on the blade’s edge, shattering the moonlight even as it fades again behind another cloud. Gon huffs. His hand rests casually on the hilt of his katana but he still hasn’t drawn it: has not even gone so far as to wrap his fingers around it. Instead they play upon the leather. “You know I can’t.”

 

Killua dances forward and Gon catches his wrist before he can land the blow to his thigh that he’d planned. He kicks and Gon winces but doesn’t let go. Killua drops the knife, catching it with his teeth at the same time he sinks a jab into his armpit. This time he breaks his grip, stepping back and to the left, circling, taking the dagger from his mouth with his left hand and drawing another with his right. Rain drips down his nose and onto his lips. He wets them, anyway.

 

“You must.”

 

Gon’s mouth twists. His left hand wraps tightly around the hilt of his katana, still unsealed, but his right doesn’t move. Then again, Killua hasn’t yet tried to break through his defence. “Wrong way round. I must protect my Daimyō. You know that.” He smiles a little and Killua would stare if he wasn’t too busy wondering how many hours he had until sunrise, and how much time he’d wasted already. “It’s kind of a lifetime deal.”

 

Killua snorts. “These days? Please. Your people might as well come lie with mine. You’ve made your beds.” Gon stares, perplexed. Killua spins the dagger in his right hand around his index finger. “Your Daimyō will come and go before summer’s reached its peak, and your duty will be done, too. We left honour with the emperors. All anyone does these days is survive.” Gon’s frown deepens and his jaw tenses.

 

“That’s not true.”

 

“Look around!” Killua’s leaping forward before the last syllable’s left the air but Gon catches him, again. It’s not that he’s faster, exactly. More that they’re perfectly matched. They move in different ways, but they do so in time and now, as Killua strains against Gon’s grip, both of their arms above their heads, neither can move the other. Killua glares into Gon’s eyes, which are dark and gold as he remembers, laced a little silver around the edges by the rain.

 

 “My people have a state. Your man’s were wiped from the map. By an orphaned thief! Now one of our more powerful generals. Gon, there isn’t any more room for duty. Now let. Me. Through.” Killua growls and twists, lashing out with a low kick at Gon’s left leg as he does. He doesn’t fall, but his foot slips in the dirt and it’s enough to break his balance long enough for Killua to slip under his arms, following the kick with a quick shallow cut to his calf that shouldn’t do more than sting but should make it more difficult to regain his balance quickly. Gon’s katana hisses into the night air as Killua’s slippered foot touches the screen’s rails. He doesn’t need the cold, damp kiss of the blade against his nape to know it’s there. He half turns, and he doesn’t say anything. His arms hang by his sides, daggers held loosely in his palms.

 

“Join us.”

 

Killua is still for precisely three heartbeats longer than he ought to have been, long enough for another samurai to have detached his head from his shoulders. But then another samurai wouldn’t have had the chance. Another samurai couldn’t have crossed the nightingale floor. He whirls, left arm coming up within the blade’s reach to push it down and away. The cloth around his arm is padded for this reason but it may as well have been tissue paper and Killua knew that from the moment his dagger met the sword. The katana sinks into his flesh but Killua is too busy bringing his left elbow down and his right hand up with his dagger to Gon’s throat to wait for the pain to hit him. Nose to nose, blood running down the Buddha and the dragon through the rain, Killua presses his knife firmly into the skin of Gon’s throat, just below his jaw. It’s exactly what the thick band of leather on his helmet’s chinstrap is designed to deflect and Killua isn’t the type to miss an opening.

 

“This is not a game.” He says it firmly, grip not loosening for a moment. The rain has by now plastered his loose curl to his cheek but he doesn’t bother to brush it away. Dripping from Gon’s eyelashes onto his cheeks, it looks almost like tears. This close, he can feel the way he’s leaning, fractionally, onto his right side, but he doubts the compensation is for much more than comfort. Had it been anyone else, the flesh would have been ripped to the bone. But they’re both compromising. Gon meets his eyes and doesn’t give and he’s as unflinching as the great mountains that loom above the castle walls, rendered invisible by the rain and the night.

 

“I know that.”

 

Killua twists his dagger away, it lifts a flap of skin but it’s barely a blister. Blood runs thickly down the blade and into the dirt as he lets it fall, pushing down at the katana as he does and stepping back. Gon doesn’t attempt to raise his sword again, but he doesn’t sheath it either. He waits and watches. Killua glances at the darkness through the screen door and wonders how none of those sleeping there haven’t woken yet.

 

“I’m not just a Zoldyck. I’m their heir.” This is the kind of information he’d not give up under torture. He hisses it in a rush. Gon doesn’t blink.

 

“I know that.”

 

Killua strangles his frustration and settles for sweeping his daggers through the rain in a quick, impulsive movement. Gon doesn’t flinch. “That’s not the point! If one of us defected, they’d be angry, but if I leave you bring the whole family down on your heads.”

 

A smile is hiding around the corners of Gon’s eyes again and he sheaths his katana. “Then we’ll cut them down.”

 

“You’d be slaughtered.” Killua doesn’t so much as pause for breath. Gon purses his lips.

 

“I can take you.”

 

Killua laughs. “I’m not them.” He shuts his eyes. “You’ve got no idea what you’re suggesting.”

 

“But you do. And we’d have you.” Gon takes another step closer. Killua, who’d been holding his daggers loosely by his sides, tenses. It’s not an obvious motion, and another might have missed it: the sinking of his shoulders and the roll of his hips. Gon freezes. Killua doesn’t look at him. He glances to his right. The newly laid walls of the castle courtyard are dark grey and tall in the night. The trees that loomed beyond them had been cut down, so only sky met the topmost bricks. It might as well have been the edge of the world. The rain stopped.

 

“I wouldn’t be enough.”

 

“You wouldn’t be alone.” Gon’s hand crosses the space between them to rest, gently, on his shoulder. Killua supposes he could kill him. He supposes he could do the same. He gives up, shoulders sinking as he slips his daggers back into their sheaths either side of his waist. He doesn’t move away.

 

“You’d die.”

 

Gon’s smile makes its way to his lips and lifts a corner, a little. “You don’t know that.”

 

Killua’s hands curl into fists at his sides. “You’re asking me to risk it.”

 

Gon laughs, softly. Very, very faintly, the sky begins to lighten. “Isn’t living risk?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> [ Chapter 1 by Puppyhawk/ Lesetoilesfous ]
> 
> This is part 1 of a challenge I've set up with MetaVirus (MortalVirus on tumblr). We'll be posting drabbles, head canons and theories of both Duty and Boys in Blue (Killugon in the NYPD!) on our tumblr accounts, so please do check them out too if you like the worlds! In the mean time, we'll be rotating chapter by chapter for the stories themselves. 
> 
> Any questions or corrections about the historical stuff I'll do my best to address - I have done some research but I admit that I refused to get too in depth (unfortunately a world exists for me beyond these beautiful sunshine children and that world requires bills be paid...) 
> 
> And finally, MetaVirus, have fun with the ultimatum...! Hehehe


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